Chapter Seven
The rain came suddenly that Friday afternoon, heavy and unrestrained, the way Lagos rain announces itself, as if the sky has finally grown tired of its own weight and must empty everything at once. Precious stood under the awning outside the office building, watching the street blur into a watercolor of headlights and umbrellas. The traffic roared like waves beside her, but inside her chest, an unfamiliar quiet had settled, the kind that frightened her.
Her phone buzzed again. She didn’t need to check the screen to know who it was.
She felt him now, not in a romantic sense, not even spiritual but like a pull, a gravitational shift, subtle and insistent.
She answered anyway.
“Hello, sir.”
“Are you still at work?” His voice was warm, gentle. Too gentle.
“Yes.”
“It’s raining heavily. Don’t attempt to trek or take a bike.”
“I’ll call a ride—”
“No,” he interrupted softly. “I’m already on my way.”
The line clicked dead.
She felt it again — that sinking sensation, like slipping deeper into something she could no longer define or control. She had once admired his decisiveness. Now it felt like something threading itself into her choices, knotting itself around her will.
Minutes later, his car appeared, slow and deliberate, wipers beating steadily.
The passenger door opened without him leaning over.
He knew she would enter.
She hated that he knew.
The car smelled of rain and something faintly spicy — cloves, or sandalwood, or something that reminded her of church incense. For a moment, they said nothing.
“You’ve been quiet,” he said gently, pulling back into the traffic.
She stared at her hands. “People are asking questions.”
“Let them,” he said, almost dismissively. “Questions are the songs of the idle.”
“But they’re saying…” She stopped. Her chest tightened. “They’re saying you slept with the girl.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened, only for a second, but she saw it.
He exhaled slowly, controlled. “People will always create stories to explain what they fear. I counseled her, yes. She came from a broken home. She sought attachment. She misinterpreted kindness. That is all.”
The explanation slid too easily into the silence.
Too smooth.
Too arranged.
Precious felt her heartbeat in her throat.
“She said you promised her a scholarship,” she whispered.
“And I did,” he replied, voice steady. “Tell me, is helping someone a crime?”
His eyes flicked toward her. “Do you believe I could do something wrong, Precious?”
The question hung like incense smoke.
Not asked for clarification.
Asked for loyalty.
Her voice trembled. “I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
He nodded, not disappointed — almost pleased. Confusion, he understood, was fertile ground.
“I am glad you said that,” he replied. “Those who are quick to believe or disbelieve are easily manipulated. But those who search? Those who wrestle with truth? God can work with them.”
The rain thickened, pounding on the windshield. They were approaching her street.
“Precious,” he said softly, “I want to help you. Not as your pastor. As someone who sees your potential. You are gifted — far beyond where you are now. I want to guide you into it.”
She turned to him, rainlight catching her face. “Guide me how?”
His eyes softened.
“Come to the retreat tomorrow. Quiet time. Just a few of us. You and I will have time to talk. To pray. To discern what God is doing.”
Her stomach tightened, not with fear alone, but something more dangerous: curiosity.
She nodded.
The car rolled to a stop.
But he didn’t unlock the door immediately.
“Precious,” he said, his voice a low, careful whisper, “I need you to trust that I would never harm you.”
The words were simple.
But the silence after them was loud.
She nodded again.
He unlocked the door.
She stepped out into the rain.
………………………..
That night, she lay awake listening to the water trickling from the roof onto the ground outside. Her body felt heavy — but her mind, restless. Memories flickered in her like candlelight: the first sermon she heard him preach, the warmth of his voice during choir meetings, the way he had once placed his hand on her shoulder while praying, the strange electricity it had carried.
Had it started then?
Had she mistaken manipulation for anointing?
She closed her eyes.
Sleep didn’t come.
The next day dawned with the kind of stillness that Lagos rarely allows. The city felt paused, like someone had taken a deep breath and forgot to release it.
The retreat took place in a quiet house — not the Blue Building, not yet — but close. Close enough for secrets to grow roots.
There were only five people present.
Three women from the prayer unit.
One male usher.
And her.
Pastor Tade arrived late — not accidentally, but like someone who understood the choreography of longing.
When he entered, the room shifted — not with spirituality — but with awareness.
Every eye, every breath, every thought turned toward him.
His sermon was calm, intimate, weaving scripture into psychology, guilt into revelation.
He spoke of healing wounds that pretend to be faith.
He spoke of obedience.
Of surrender.
But the way he looked at her during it made the words bend into something else entirely.
After the last prayer, he asked her to stay behind.
The others left quietly — too quietly.
As though they already knew something she did not.
The house was silent.
“Tell me what you fear,” he said, stepping closer.
She didn’t answer.
Her breath shook.
“Tell me where it hurts,” he whispered.
And that was the moment — not when he first touched her — but the moment before, when silence became complicity.
She felt something in her shift, a boundary, a belief, a self.
She didn’t move away when he reached for her hand.
And it was on that day in the quiet of that room that Precious Adigba took her first step into becoming the woman the city would later whisper about:
the one who hunted pastors,
who burned ministries to ashes,
who smiled while men’s reputations dissolved beneath her feet.
But today, she was still only a girl.
A girl at the beginning of the fire.
to be cont’d
